China plans repairs to dangerous dams

China's government says just under half of its nearly 90,000 dams are dangerously unstable and need urgent repair, as it unveiled a three-year plan costing 27 billion yuan ($4.17 billion).

"Over the last several years, dams have had a very important effect on socio-economic development," Deputy Water Resources Minister Jiao Yong told a meeting carried live on the government's website.

"But many of these dams were built between the 1950s and 1970s, under conditions at the time which restricted objectivity.

"The design and construction quality of many of these dams contain congenital deficiencies, and they are now old and in serious need of repairs. A large number have hidden dangers."

Chairman Mao Zedong, who died in 1976, ordered the country to develop at any cost, putting special emphasis on large-scale projects such as steelworks and dams.

Mao declared "man must conquer nature", and during his time in power engineers were feted for ambitious projects that sought to remould the landscape in pursuit of economic progress.

But many projects were hastily and poorly built, with little regard for the environment. In 1975, tens of thousands of residents of Henan province in central China died after two dams collapsed. That disaster was revealed to the public only in recent years.

Mr Jiao said that of the roughly 87,000 dams in China, more than 37,000 were in a dangerous state.

"As the global climate heats up, weather extremes like torrential rain increases and as society and the economy develops downstream of dams, the potential danger gets greater and greater," he said.

"The huge number of dangerous dams has already become a weak link and unstable factor in flood prevention.

Vice Premier Hui Liangyu said that over the next three years the government would spend an annual average of more than $1.3 million to fix the problem.